They Called Me "Preacher": The Autobiography of an Unlikely Warrior in an Unfriendly Place

By William J Picking

Enjoy this story of a California teen who first served his country in 1967. His faith was shaken as he came home to discover the world had changed, but so had he. Seen and unseen wounds altered his perspective on life, but compelled him to share lessons learned about PTSD and TBI. This book will forever change the way you look at a warrior. Your new view will be filtered through the lens of how anxiety, fear, adrenalin, terror, death and trauma forever alter the person within. Faith shaken but never lost offers a glimpse into this warriors perseverance today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499068252

William J Picking

William Picking has retired from the military after over 40 years of service in multiple venues. He volunteered as a Marine grunt and after many years as an Army officer, continues to help veterans of all ages. In spite of multiple physical limitations, he has an earned doctorate with special emphasis on PTSD and counselling. He encourages veterans and their families by example, offering them resources to help them cope with everyday life and the pitfalls of living with war trauma. He lives in Lynchburg, Virginia with his wife Bonnie and the nearby grandkids!

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They Called Me Preacher

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The Autobiography of an Unlikely Warrior in an Unfriendly Place

William J Picking

Copyright © 2014 by William J Picking.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, © 1983 The Zondervan Corporation.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. © 1982 Thomas Nelson, Incorporated. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/21/2014

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 Sign Me Up

Chapter 2A Platoon of Angels

Chapter 3 Welcome to Vietnam, Marine!

Chapter 4 Happy Birthday to Me!

Chapter 5 Who’s in Charge Here?

Chapter 6 Heatstroke Fallout

Chapter 7 The Disappearing Helicopter

Chapter 8 Here Comes the Cavalry!

Chapter 9 Hawaii with a Side of Home

Chapter 10 Who Wants this Bridge?

Chapter 11 This is Arizona?

Chapter 12 Point Man Up

Chapter 13 Lost Mail, Lost Grub

Chapter 14 Night Terror

Chapter 15 The Nightmare Begins

Chapter 16 The Hell Continues

Chapter 17 College Coeds

Chapter 18 Holiday Spirits

Chapter 19 The Long Road Home

Epilogue The Wife’s Perspective

Resources

• This book is dedicated to the memory of those I served with in Golf Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Marines. It is also dedicated to those who served alongside us and provided much needed support to the success of our missions. The officers and men were dedicated to each other and to our survival. We accomplished our missions but often with casualties. I am honored to have been a part of Third Platoon. Our corpsmen were an example of selfless service and would do whatever it takes to treat our wounds and get us out of harm’s way. We were a highly trained team, honed by combat and older in experience than our youthful countenance showed.

• Additional dedication is made in honor of the young woman who became my bride just a few months after my return from Vietnam. Neither of us knew what to expect, but I am thankful for our five beautiful children. The invisible wounds I carried home were just too much for all of you to bear, so we parted after ten unsuccessful years of trying to live with the ravages of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. I am truly sorry to have caused so much heartache and hardship on my lovely family, but I am proud of the strong adults they have become.

• I also wish to dedicate this story to my present wife who has worked hard to help me accomplish the development of this book. Our purpose is not only the sharing of my war experiences but also the sharing of the source of the trauma and stress that I carried home and continue to carry to this day. Our prayer is that readers will find something that resonates with their own situation and be encouraged and strengthened to keep on keeping on.

• I want to thank the Lord for giving us the strength to relive my battle experiences and get them down on paper. My prayer is that many will find their way back to God by reading this book.

Memories in the Wind

I heard the wind blowing gently through the trees

And the sorrow and loss from me flees.

For on the wind comes the memories of Marines

Long gone but never lost as I hear their voices in the trees.

I heard the wind blowing gently in the grass

And I knew the memories of you would always last.

Seems as if the years have flown by so fast

That my emotions are as fragile as glass.

And though society and people have uncaring blasts,

I know that on the wind, memories of you all last.

Dedicated to Whiskey Echo

Weapons Platoon; Golf 2/7

William J Picking

1995

FOREWORD

I t has been close to half a century since most of the events in this book have taken place, yet I can recall most of them like they happened just a week ago. I feel that it is important to acknowledge that experiences in battle are very personal, and each person involved had a different vantage point and therefore often a different perspective. This is an account of how I remember events and how I reacted and felt during my war experiences. Going to Vietnam was certainly life changing for me, as it was for so many others of that era. Names of the Marines involved have been changed to avoid any additional pain to their friends or families.

The other life-changing experience for me was when I became a believer in Christ at the age of fifteen during my sophomore year of high school. Suddenly, I discovered there was a purpose and meaning to my life, and I loved the feeling of security and belonging that being a believer brought me. I carried my Bible to class on top of my textbooks, not to show off but because I genuinely enjoyed reading it whenever I had a few free moments. As a result, I became the class counselor for all the kids; they seemed to gravitate to me for advice about their relationships and family issues.

I couldn’t have known then but see now how those early years prepared me for my ultimate calling. Today I find myself spending many hours sharing my faith and godly advice to many, mostly veterans and their families, not from a pulpit but from wherever we might meet. We talk in restaurants, in my home, on the phone … And we talk about everything from veterans’ issues to spiritual matters.

In those early years, I met and fell in love with a blue-eyed blond beauty in my junior class, and we dated for an entire year. She moved away, and our relationship ended. As she went to college and I to Vietnam, I figured our paths would never cross again. But God had another idea, one that neither of us could have imagined or predicted. After almost forty years, we reconnected and discovered that we still had feelings for each other. Much to my surprise and delight, after dating and catching up on each other’s lives, we married on Valentine’s Day of 2004.

She knew I had post-traumatic stress disorder; very few, if any, of us returned from that awful war without it. She had observed how it had destroyed most of my former relationships, both with my spouse and my children. She also knew that PTSD just doesn’t go away with time; in fact, it often worsens as the veteran gets older and has time for more introspection. She did her homework and felt that she knew enough to take a calculated risk.

Even knowing so much about PTSD and being mentally prepared to deal with it, there were some surprises. At times, my behavior could be awful. I would blow up and get angry at the most unpredictable times. She knew that a soft answer turns away wrath, and most of the time, she was able to help defuse my anger. She understood that the anger was not directed at her; most often, it would come because of a frustration I was experiencing, even something so simple as not being able to get my cell phone to work properly.

However, sometimes my outbursts would blindside her. In a rush of frustration, I might throw my phone across the room or slam a door shut unexpectedly. During those times, I could see the hurt on her face but felt helpless in the moment to diminish my reactions. We both learned coping tools that helped us handle these difficult times, and I became very proficient at offering a sincere apology once I had calmed down. Sometimes, the tears flowed from one or both of us, but we are committed to each other and to the love we have in our hearts.

We are also both committed to the calling God has placed on my life, which has extended to her as well. I consider myself a Veteran’s Resource Specialist who does whatever it takes to bring our soldiers fully home. That involves ministering to families as well because they are fully impacted by the actions, behaviors, and physical limitations of their veteran. Education is key because unless the family understands where the veteran is coming from, they have a difficult time with his behaviors and unpredictability. Both my wife and I have a part in that education, recognizing that in order to conquer an issue, you have to recognize and define it first.

Just the very act of asking for help is a huge step in the right direction for many veterans who are used to fending for themselves. As in all issues, whether of the heart, the body, or the mind, recognizing that there could be a problem and asking for help is the only way that the possibility for change can be set in motion. Getting counseling, attending anger management classes, using medications properly, taking advantage of online veteran’s resources, talking to other veterans, and taking some risks—all these are ways to begin the healing process.

The world doesn’t necessarily need another book on the ill-fated war in Vietnam. However, for years, I have felt compelled to tell my story, not so much for the details of war, although there are many, but to highlight the impact it had on my life and on the lives of many family members. It was tough to relive many of the details shared, but families need to recognize how hard it was for many of us to do what we had to do in the name of war. Our hearts, our minds, and our bodies were scarred from our time spent overseas, and many of us have never learned how to make the nightmares go away. We have wreaked havoc in the lives of those we love the most and who loved us dearly until they could not tolerate our behaviors any longer.

Therefore, I am sharing my story, the story of a soft-spoken Bible-believing teenager who felt obliged to serve my country and simultaneously minister to the young men who answered that call alongside me. None of us could have been prepared for the reality of what would happen to us or of what we would be required to do in that foreign land. None of us knew the extent of the baggage we would be carrying home to our families and friends. We were strong, we were young, we were invincible … or so we thought. Until the first of our comrades died in our arms. Then it suddenly became a complicated story of survival, of watching each other’s backs.

Survive I did but wish for my legacy to be more than that of just raw survival. Half a century later, I still carry my Bible and gladly share my faith with others. Because of war, there are more experiences to share now. As a longtime counselor and minister, I have discovered the truthfulness of Rick Warren’s statement in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, which reveals that your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts (p. 275). Being 100 percent rated for PTSD and also recently being confirmed by the VA as having TBI (traumatic brain injury), I am well aware of the impact these disorders have on life. Therefore, my mission is to take what I have experienced and learned and share it with as many as possible.

My desire is to influence those remaining family members from Our Greatest Generation who were involved in WWII to those returning from the more recent conflicts. We have yet another generation of young warriors coming home from battle, some with visible injuries but so many more with those invisible wounds which leave them and their families captive to unwanted and unexpected emotional outbursts and spells of unexplainable anger. My goal is to help equip these young warriors with tools to help them live more effective and fulfilled lives. This can also allow their families to begin the healing process by recognizing the issues and learning how to cope with them.

It is my prayer that this book will begin that process in those who read its pages. It has been a labor of love from me and my wife for many years, and I look forward to hearing of many whose lives were touched by its content. My prayers are with all those who bravely served our country in whatever capacity they were called upon to serve. May God bless you and your family for your efforts, and may He bring you the healing you deserve to receive.

CHAPTER 1

Sign Me Up

W ho can say what normal is anymore? I spent my adolescent days as a conservative Southern California boy in the early sixties, staying active in high school sports and my church. Perhaps because of the church activity and certainly because I was not shy about sharing my faith, I was considered the unofficial school chaplain and spiritual counselor by many of my classmates. I often found myself helping them with spiritual and personal problems and answering their questions about the Bible as best as I knew how.

For most of my high school years, I attended a small Christian school, Heritage High in Anaheim, California, with a student body of about two hundred. I enjoyed being active and involved in the lives of my friends, and this helped me win me the honor of Most School Spirit award for two years and Student Body President in my senior year.

Involvement with outreach ministry during those early days of my faith was important to me. In my junior and senior years, one of my high school buddies would assist me with a ministry to convalescent homes in our neighborhood. John was the driver and singer, and I was the preacher. The old folks would listen politely and often with tears in their eyes rededicated their lives to the Lord. During those days of fun and innocence, I had no idea of what the future held or what I might be preparing for. In retrospect, I can recognize now how the Lord was growing me and giving me life experiences I would later need to serve Him.

As I reflect on my involvement in sports, I feel my record was notable for a skinny, blond, green-eyed California boy who looked more like he belonged on a surfboard than on the playing field. In spite of appearances, I lettered in football, basketball, and track. I remember that at the beginning of track season, I had dedicated my running ability to the Lord. I used my ability as a testimony to other runners how turning my life over to Christ allowed me to concentrate more completely on doing my best. Throughout the season, I saw five fellow runners accept Christ into their lives.

I earned bronze metals in our Academy League Track and Field finals, one for running the mile in 4:50, which in the sixties was pretty quick! I remember how excited my coach was when I ran my portion of the 440-relay race in twenty-one seconds. He told me how he was looking forward to having the fastest relay team in the state for the following year. I’ll not forget his look of disappointment when I reminded him that not only was I graduating, but I was also going to be doing any future running trying to save my hide in Vietnam!

As a normal teen in the sixties, I was totally enamored with the love songs of the decade. They all seemed to promise that love was forever and would be the solution to all my woes! Songs like The Twelfth of Never,, Sealed with a Kiss, and Love Me Tender turned young men’s thoughts toward the gentler sex, and I was no exception. I felt that having a girlfriend was very special, so I pursued several pleasant relationships. I have been told since (by a reputable source) that I treated my dates with complete respect and gentleness, so much so that, to my embarrassment, they would find themselves having to reach out and hold my hand! My mother had done a very thorough job of frightening me into being very careful and morally responsible with the ladies, and it seems I followed her advice almost to a fault!

During my junior year, I dated Bonnie, a junior who had come to our school from New York, a real (blue-eyed blond) foreigner! We got along wonderfully, and I cared about her very much. We did the usual high school activities together, attending games and special events as often as possible. We were also both very active in our local church, which provided many fun activities for teens to safely grow and develop and have a wonderful time together. Her cousin, Gordon Luff, was our youth director, and he led his teens by word and example as he tried to help us grow up into responsible adults. However, dating his cousin had its disadvantages … He kept a close eye on our activities, even to the point of yelling at me from the driver’s seat of our youth bus that I must take my arm off her shoulder as we were riding home from winter camp! In actuality, she was cold, and I was trying to be a gentleman; but much to my embarrassment, my chivalry was revealed to the whole busload of kids.

I had dreams of our romance lasting for a lifetime, but it seems she had other visions—she wrote me a Dear Bill letter that summer ending our relationship because I was too intense. In another year, she was going on to college, and I knew exactly where I was heading! It seems that knowing I was destined for military service did